ANT KATZ

While Jewish Report Online has been following the story with interest since Sunday  August 2, the news sources who were reporting on it have proven to lack credibility in the past. Once the mainstream media in the Netherlands reported the story on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, JR Online felt the story had enough credibility to publish.

The NLTIMES.nl quoted Telegraaf and FAILEDMESSIAH.com – as well as the Orthodox news website Behadrei Haredim – placing the “alleged sexually abusive rabbi” in the Caribbean.

RIGHT: The wily rabbi is reportedly hunkered down on an island off the coast of Venezuela which has no extradition treaty with Israel

“The Orthodox news site Behadrei Haredim reports that Berland is on Petit Tobacco Island, a hard to reach small island in the Tobago Cays, according to the Telegraaf. It seems that the Rabbi chose this island due to its lack of an extradition treaty with Israel. The fact that it is difficult to reach – from the Netherlands you would have to take flights to London, Barbados and St Vincent to finally reach the Tobago Cays by boat – also may have played a roll,” wrote NLTimes today.

Berland had been arrested at Schiphol Airport upon his arrival in the Netherlands from South Africa last September. He was released shortly after on condition that the Netherlands seize his passport, and that the rabbi regularly check in with the police. He fled the Netherlands somewhere during the past month or so, around the time that his appeal against his extradition to Israel was denied.

Early last month the Dutch Public Prosecutor confirmed that Rabbi Berland’s whereabouts were unclear. On July 7 SAJR Online reported that the rabbi was ON THE RUN AGAIN after a Dutch court rejected his appeal and authorised his extradition to Israel. Read about the rabbi-on-the-run’s spurious claims in his appeal, which held no sway with the Dutch court.

The head of the Shuvu Bonim sect’s lawyer told the court that his client had allegedly been hospitalised and he was duly ordered to turn himself in to Dutch police on Monday July 6. However, it seemed that Berland had, in fact, slipped away and fled to an undisclosed country which has no extradition treaty with Israel.

He has now evaded deportation for almost three years, twice slipping away from the Hawks in SA.

Rabbi Berland heads the breakaway Breslov Chasidic Shuvu Bonim sect. He jumped bail and fled Holland after exhausting all attempts to block his extradition to Israel, where he has been wanted for several years for allegedly sexually abusing several female followers, most of them young married women but at least one an underage teen girl.

Somewhere, out there, above the ocean blue

---

Berland is supposedly now on tiny Petit Tobacco Island with a few close followers and his gabbaim (assistants). The island – situated in the Tobago Cays – is so small it does not appear on Google Maps. The Cays are in turn a part of the island chain that makes up the nation of St Vincent and the Grenadines. St Vincent and the Grenadines (also known simply as St Vincent) is part of the Lesser Antilles Island arc of the southern portion of the Windward Islands located at the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea where it joins the Atlantic Ocean.

Martinique lies to St Vincent’s north, Grenada lies to its south. The Tobago Cays are not part of Trinidad and Tobago.

According to Beharei Haredim, St Vincent and the Grenadines has no extradition treaty with Israel and is known for granting asylum and citizenship to individuals if certain (unknown) conditions are met.

There are no flights to any of the Tobago Cays, and it takes multiple flights to reach the capital of St Vincent and the Grenadines. From there, Petit Tobacco Island is reachable – but only by boat. Nevertheless, hundreds of Breslov Chassidim are now expected to pay around R50 000 per person to travel there to live.

Berland and his top aides reportedly seem to believe Israel will now give up trying to return him to Israel for trial.

Despite all his travails, not one top haredi rabbi has spoken out against him.

Related posts on this website:

Links to all previous posts about Rav Berland